For Whom the Smell Tolls: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Novel (A Nora Black Midlife Psychic Mystery Book 2)

by Renee George

  We watched as two small yachts and three or four motorboats passed by. It was peaceful until a large pontoon drifted by with a group of young men who were in their early twenties, most of them shirtless. One held up a sign that read, “Show us your titties,” as the rest of them held up beers, wiggled, shimmied, and shouted encouragement to the female diners. Humph. It was nice to see misogyny was alive and well in Garden Cove.

  “It looks like the Memorial weekend kickoff has begun,” I said.

  Ezra laughed. “At least they spelled titties right. Last year, I saw at least two signs where guys spelled the same word with double Ds.” He waggled his brows.

  “Dad,” Mason said, his tone embarrassed. “Gross.”

  I laughed.

  Ezra glanced at Mason, whose gaze was glued to his phone. He was no different than Ari and Marco, who both treated their phones like extensions of their arms. They couldn’t go five seconds without scrolling or tapping.

  Ezra narrowed his gaze at the boatful of idiots. “It’s just going to get worse from here. Rafferty has the uniforms working twelve-hour shifts this weekend to handle the drunks.”

  “Water patrol is going to have their hands full as well,” I added.

  My dad used to do the same thing on big summer holidays. It made sense for Shawn to follow suit. But I didn’t say it out loud, because, while Ezra knew his boss was my ex-husband, I didn’t want to constantly remind him.

  He nodded. Then he pasted on a smile. “Mason’s been helping me clean up the backyard at my place. We’re going to look into getting a dog. Isn’t that right, son?”

  Mason shrugged. “Sure,” he replied. Tap. Tap. Tap. Scroll. Scroll. Scroll. It didn’t bother me. Marco used his phone to distract himself when he was stressed out. I imagined Mason used it in much the same way. And I imagined meeting me was the last thing on the kid’s to-do list during his time with his dad. But I could tell that his seeming indifference bugged Ezra. I blew out a breath and made an effort to engage with the teenager. “Are you starting your senior year in the fall?”

  “Yep,” he said. To the phone.

  “My best friend has twins in high school. Marco and Ari Rossi. You know either of them?”

  He managed to pull his gaze away from the screen long enough to look at me. His eyes were green like his father’s. “Yep.”

  “Uhm, are you looking at colleges?”

  “Nope.”

  “Mason,” Ezra said, his tone filled with warning. “You said you were interested in Blaston University. You said they had a good art program.”

  “Maybe.” The boy shrugged.

  “How about this weather?” I asked Ezra.

  He frowned, then laughed. Then I laughed. Mason turned in his seat slightly to face away from us, which made me laugh again.

  “This dinner is going so well,” Ezra said.

  “And we haven’t even ordered food yet,” I added.

  Our waitress, a young brunette, came to the table. She plopped down menus in front of us. “I’m Tess. I’ll be your server tonight. Can I get you folks something to drink?”

  “I’ll take Diet Coke,” I said.

  “I’ll have an iced tea,” Ezra ordered, “and Mason will have a—”

  “Mountain Dew,” the boy grunted out.

  “Is Mellow Yellow okay?” Tess asked.

  “Sure,” he said, moving his gaze from his phone to the menu. “Can we get spinach artichoke dip and chips and cheese sticks to start?” He glanced at his dad for approval.

  Ezra gave a tiny shake of his head, but grinned. “Add bacon and cheese potato wedges.” He looked at me. “Do you want any starters?”

  “I think that’s plenty of appetizers,” I said.

  “You’d think,” said Ezra, grinning. “But you’ve never seen the Holden men chow down.”

  “I’m sure it’s impressive.” I looked at the waitress. “I’m good, thanks.”

  “Okay.” Tess tapped her order pad. “I’ll be back in a few minutes with your drinks and take your entrée orders.”

  “Perfect,” said Ezra. “Thank you.”

  As soon as Tess left, I stood up from the table. My back was screaming at me to move and stretch. I didn’t want to make a big show of it, but I needed to walk and work out the kinks I’d gotten from the ride over. “Please, excuse me,” I told Ezra. “If Tess comes back for our orders. I’ll take the blackened grouper with wild rice. Extra lemon aioli.”

  His brow furrowed. “Everything okay?”

  “Fine,” I said with a smile. “Just going to go wash my hands. If it’s okay, I’ll leave my purse here.” I didn’t want to haul it around with me. It weighed a couple of pounds with all the stuff crammed in there, and I didn’t need my shoulder acting up in addition to my lower back. Getting old sucked.

  “I’ll keep your bag safe,” said Ezra. “You sure you’re all right?”

  “Aces,” I said, giving a thumbs-up. “Be right back.”

  Instead of heading to the bathroom, I walked through the restaurant and out the front door. A concrete sidewalk led to a path down to the lake. I wanted some privacy to do some yoga stretches, so I followed it around to the back. The restaurant sat on the edge of the lake, so the dock seating where I’d left Ezra and his son overhung the water by twenty or so feet. I stood right under it on a gravel bank that was only about four feet wide, where no one could see me.

  I stretched from side to side, then did a standing forward bend. On my way up from the pose, I saw something red under the dock near one of the upright support posts, about halfway to the end of the structure.

  I walked to the edge of the water for a closer look. A ripple in the water caused by a passing boat disturbed the red object enough that it rolled.

  “Oh, no.” I felt the blood drain from my face. Was that a person? “Hey,” I shouted.

  As ridiculous as it sounds, I waited for a second to see if the person would pop their head up. An arm floated to the surface. I recognized the cuff bracelet.

  “No, no, no. Help! Someone help!” I shouted, hoping anyone from the restaurant might hear me as I kicked my boots off and waded out into the water. “Fiona!” I yelled, waist-deep in water, my feet sinking into the slimy muck as I made my way to her.

  I’ve had to touch corpses before—my mother’s, for one. It’s unpleasant. Something happens to a body on a cellular level when life leaves it. Fiona’s skin was a pale blue and as cold as the water surrounding us. I grabbed her, tugging her toward the bank. The action tweaked my back, but adrenaline and panic kept me going. “Help!” I cried out again. “Please, anyone!” My face was wet, and not just with splashing water. I wept for the girl who earlier in the day had acted so joyous, so full of life.

  I stumbled back as the water grew shallow. Exhaustion overtook me as I sat on rock and mud. I pulled Fiona onto my lap. Her wide eyes were sightless, staring at nothing. I knew there was no point to starting CPR. She was gone. And she’d been gone for a while, given how cold and gray her skin looked.

  “Nora!” I heard Ezra shout.

  My arms and legs felt like lead. I didn’t have the energy to crawl out from under the dock, so I shouted, “Down here. Under the dock. Please help!”

  Within minutes, Ezra and a handful of other people were under the dock with me, hauling both Fiona and me to the shore.

  I was soaked to the bone now, and with the sun setting, the chill made my teeth chatter.

  Mason came up next to me. “A woman inside said an ambulance is on the way,” he said breathlessly.

  “I don’t need an ambulance,” I said. “And it’s too late for Fiona.”

  Someone handed Mason a coat and the boy carefully wrapped it around me.

  “Thanks, Mason,” I said. Then I burst into tears. He awkwardly patted my shoulder as a crowd gathered closer to us and Ezra checked for Fiona’s carotid pulse.

  “Christ, Nora. What happened?” he said in a low voice.

  “She was just there,” I said as a pleasant numbness
took over. I pointed out to the post. “She was just…”

  “It’s okay, Nora.” He stood up, keeping himself between Fiona’s body and the crowd of onlookers. He reached out and squeezed my shoulder. “It’s okay.”

  I shook my head. “It’s not. Fiona was here. Alive. Happy. And now she’s gone. There’s nothing okay about that.”

  Chapter 6

  “She’s Reese’s cousin.”

  Ezra’s expression tightened as he took in this information. “Okay. We’ll get her notified.”

  As I studied Fiona’s youthful, heart-shaped face, I found it difficult to reconcile the bubbly woman who’d preened about good news she couldn’t reveal yet with the lifeless girl lying on the bank. She wore a red cocktail dress that was noticeably ripped, and her feet were bare. There was something else as well. She wasn’t wearing the ruby and diamond ring she’d sported at the pharmacy. Had it slipped off in the water along with her shoes?

  I was warmer now, and as the shock wore off, my fight-or-flight reflex was in complete flight mode. “I want to go home.”

  “Can you wait just a little bit? Maybe you and Mason can wait for the police in the parking lot,” directed Ezra. “Give them a statement and let them know where to go.”

  “Of course.” I could tell he wanted Mason away from the scene, and I felt like an idiot for not thinking of it myself. Getting the kid away from a dead body would have been Gilly’s first move.

  Ezra gave me a grateful nod. “Thanks, Nora.”

  Mason and I went out to the parking lot together. I was wet, mud up to my calves, and one glance in my car’s sideview mirror told me I should have worn waterproof mascara. I looked like a drowned raccoon. Cripes. The thought made me sick. I was miserable, but at least I was alive. Poor Fiona.

  “Did she fall off a boat?” Mason asked.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  Mason rubbed his arms, his shoulders rounded, as he kicked a piece of gravel. He looked young. Lost. I was such an idiot. Seeing Fiona dead, even briefly, had shaken me. I could only imagine what it would have felt like when I was sixteen.

  “Are you okay? Do you want to go home?” I asked Mason. “Or you can come home with me.”

  He shook his head. “I’ll wait for my dad.”

  “I can stay with you if you don’t want to be alone,” I said.

  He made a noise that could only be interpreted as disgust. He straightened his shoulders. “I’m good.”

  Great. I’m fairly certain I’d poked at his pride. “Well, I don’t want to be alone.”

  “Yeah. You don’t look so good.” He leaned against my car. “How long do you think it will take Dad to finish up?”

  “It could be a while.” Drownings happened in Garden Cove, more than the powers that be in this town would like for tourists to know. When my dad had been the chief of police, he’d had to deal with at least five drownings that I was aware of, and I was certain there had been more that he’d managed to keep under wraps. But it was a hazard of being a resort town situated on the water. And on a weekend like this, where the lake was packed with drunk tourists on boats, it was only by sheer luck that more people didn’t fall overboard to their deaths.

  Mason got on his phone and proceeded to ignore me. I rummaged through my purse and found my own. I created a group text with Gilly and Pippa.

  I sent them a heart emoji because I wasn’t sure what to write.

  Three dots came up, then Gilly texted: How’s the date?

  Date over.

  Pippa texted next. The kid run you off with a pitchfork and torch?

  I’m not Frankenstein’s monster, I sent back. Though I had died and been brought back to life, so the joke wasn’t lost on me.

  Then why is it over? Gilly asked.

  Found someone in the lake. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them that I’d personally found Fiona and had pulled her out of the water.

  Three dots. Three dots. Three dots. Then nothing. My besties, for once, were at a loss for words.

  Three dots again, then Gilly typed: Tourist?

  Local. I answered. I wasn’t sure if I should give them Fiona’s name. After all, her family hadn’t been notified, yet. I decided to trust them to keep it to themselves. Pippa liked to gossip, but only with Gilly and me. Keep it to yourselves until the family knows, but it’s Fiona McKay.

  Gilly: Wow. That’s awful.

  Pippa: Don’t know who that is.

  She’s Reese McKay’s cousin. Just saw her yesterday. So heartbreaking.

  I watched a balding man getting out of his car a few spaces down from me, and even without his white lab coat, I recognized him as Burt Adler, the pharmacist. I quickly typed, can’t talk call later, and hit send.

  I tucked my cellphone into my purse’s side pocket as he walked past Mason and me. “I think they’ve closed,” I told him.

  Adler jerked to a startled halt. “Why?”

  “They found a…uh, body in the lake.” The words came easier if I didn’t use Fiona’s name.

  “Do you know who?”

  I shook my head.

  Burt Adler took off toward the restaurant without so much as a thank you or goodbye. I saw him stop just outside the front door and talk to a man, shorter than him but the same slim build. They exchanged a few words before Adler trekked back to his car.

  “I’m still hungry,” Mason said.

  I shook my head. Who could think about eating at a time like this? A growing boy, that’s who. In a way, Mason reminded me of when I’d been a high school sophomore. I’d been gangly, awkward, and felt weird about my body. I wore a lot of oversized shirts to hide myself. Gilly had bloomed in eighth grade, but I hadn’t even gotten my period until the end of the summer before our sophomore year.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I wanted to distract the boy. Get his mind off the tragic evening. If that was even possible. “I bet your dad would pick you up something on the way home. Maybe from Taco Shake Shack.”

  “I love tacos,” he said.

  “Me too.” Well, that was one thing we had in common. Mason was really slender, gangly. Ezra had told me that the boy ate more than he did. “You must have a hollow leg,” I said.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “You’re in great shape is all. I wish I had your metabolism.”

  Mason shook his head. “I wish I could gain weight.”

  “Hey, you know. Give your body time. You’re probably hungry because you’re still growing. According to my friend Gilly, boys can keep growing until they’re in their twenties. And once you stop growing up, I’m sure you’ll start to fill out. I mean, look at your dad. He’s pretty stacked.”

  Mason pulled a face.

  “Sorry. I just mean, he’s not super skinny. I’m sure you got some of his genes.”

  “Mom says I look a lot like dad did when he was my age.”

  I blinked at Mason. He was sixteen, the same age Ezra had been when he’d gotten Kati pregnant and married her. I couldn’t even imagine what kind of stress that must have been for him. Now that I really looked at Mason, I could see Ezra in the deep set of his eyes, the high cheekbones, and his wide mouth.

  I smiled at Mason. “Then your dad was pretty cute when he was your age,” I said.

  Mason stared at me, and as serious as can be, he said, “Aren’t I a little young for you?”

  I felt like I’d been punched in the throat. “I didn’t mean it like that. I only meant to say, that your mom is right, you do look like your dad.”

  Mason laughed hard enough that he was snorting on every third or fourth guffaw.

  “Got ya,” he said, still laughing.

  “Ha ha,” I said flatly. “Not funny.”

  “I’m sorry, Nora,” he chuckled. “But your face. Priceless.”

  I chuckled. “Yeah, yeah, you got me."

  He nodded. “Hey, I was just joking. So, don’t tell my dad. He ordered me to be nice to you.”

  “Ordered you, huh?” Still, I felt like I should address the fi
fty-one-year-old cougar in the parking lot. “Does it bother you that we’re going out?”

  “Why would I care?”

  Oh, lawd, he was going to make me say it. “Because of my age.”

  Mason frowned. “What about it?”

  “Because I’m older than your dad.”

  “You’re both old,” he said with the casualness of youth. “Besides, there’s the same age difference between Mom and Roger.”

  Okay, so I was starting to love this kid. “You’re wise beyond your years.”

  He smirked. “I’ve been told that by my mom, too.”

  “Nora!” I looked toward the embankment as Ezra waved and trotted across the lot to us.

  He gave Mason a quick, reassuring shoulder squeeze, then asked me, “Can we talk for a moment?” He nodded toward his truck.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Mason, stay here. I need to ask Nora a few questions. We’ll be right back.”

  Mason shrugged, but the grooves deepened between his furrowed brows. “Whatever,” he said.

  I followed Ezra to the other side of his truck. “Did you get ahold of Reese?” I asked.

  “Chief told me he’d make the death notification.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “How do you know Fiona McKay?” he asked.

  I frowned. “I ran into Fiona yesterday outside the courthouse, then again this morning at the pharmacy.”

  “What was your sense of her?”

  “Do you mean intuition or sense? As in my gut feeling, or my scratch-n-sniff visions?”

  “Either,” he said. “Both, actually.”

  “I liked her. She seemed…sweet.” I didn’t want to speak ill of the dead, but I couldn’t hide the vision I’d gotten about Fiona. “The first time I met her, I got a scent vision. I saw a memory of a man giving her drugs.”

  “Do you know who?”

  “Unless his real name is Sugar, I have no idea.”

  “Seriously?” Ezra asked.

  “Yep.”

  He tilted his head at me. “Was it a boyfriend?”

  “Maybe. They were definitely friendly. He had red and black pointy-toed cowboy boots on, if that helps any.”